Why Did Microsoft Develop A Mashup Tool For Non-programmers

Eweek has a very interesting interview with John Montgomery about the development of Popfly. Popfly is a mashup tool that lets non-programmers connect different Internet tools/websites/databases and other bits of information and use them in interesting and fun ways. In the interview John talks about how the product came about, how Microsoft plans to monitize it while keeping it free to users and other interesting things about future directions. Go read it - I think you'll enjoy it.

And if that (or reading about Popfly at its home) makes you interested I have a couple of invitations to the beta I will share with people in education.

BTW John has a very good blog where he talks about Popfly and other ways the that Microsoft's developer organization is interested in helping hobbyists, students and other non-professional developers do interesting and fun things.

Technorati tags: popfly, John Montgomery, mashups